


Every cloud....

by chellexxx



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Awesome Dean Winchester, COVID-19, Confessions, Gen, Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Pandemics, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:47:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29445795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chellexxx/pseuds/chellexxx
Summary: The pandemic is here and the brothers are watching it unfold, just like the rest of the world.Gen. Set in Season 14 before ‘Game Night’
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	Every cloud....

**Author's Note:**

> No beta, all mistakes are my own

Dean walks in to the library, puts down the two mugs he’s carrying on the table just as Sam enters from the corridor.  
He looks up with an unspoken question.

Sam, still looking at the phone in his hand, shakes his head and looks at his brother.

“Nothing? What the hell is this Sam? It has to be some type of curse, Rowena must know something. Anything.”

“No, it’s not a curse, but it’s not ‘nothing’ either,” Sam responds, “Rowena said that it’s Mother Nature.”

“Mother Nature? She’s real? Is she evil? Do we need to kill her?” Dean responded, looking round for something, anything to defend himself and Sam from the newest ‘Big Bad’.

“No,” Sam shook his head, “it’s not like it’s a person or an entity. Just nature, this” pointing at the silent television with the news banners rolling with heartbreaking stories “is apparently is just a pandemic. Well not ‘just’ of course, it’s the life cycle of the Earth, every 100 years or so here comes an event like this. Only this time the world gets to watch it in real time instead of reading about it after the fact in their history books.”

“There must be something we can do. It’s killing thousands of innocents every day. I can’t just sit here and do nothing!” said Dean his voice rising frustrated.

“I hear you, I honestly don’t know. I think we need to follow the scientists’ advice for now and bunker down. Rowena said that there is no way to fight this, it’s something that we have to hide from. An invisible monster.”

“Huh, bunker down, in the bunker.” smirked Dean. 

Sam gave him ‘bitch face #4’, ‘pissed but still amused’. “One point to Dean.” Dean thought, mentally holding his index finger up. 

Sam picked up his coffee, took a drink and sighed. “So what are we going to do?”

“We contact Cas and Jack, call Mom, Jody and the girls, Donna, Garth and all the hunters that will take our call and spread the word. We can’t be the only ones looking for a supernatural solution to this.” gesturing to the television. “They need to know that this is ‘Mother Nature’ not ‘Apocalypse now’, again.”

~~~

“Cas and Jack are heading back now, they should be here in a couple of days. Jack’s frustrated that he can’t heal everyone and Cas is teaching him about his new limitations. Sounds like a fun ride!” Dean told Sam. 

Sam was happy to know that they would be together again soon. He wanted everyone home, safe, but he was relieved that Cas was going to give Jack that talk and not him.

~~~

“Mom’s good,” Dean reported, “she’s with Bobby and they are down South. They finished up their hunt and found somewhere safe to stay till this is all over or till it’s safe to come home. She promised to keep in touch.”

“Good.” Said Sam, “I wish she were here though”

“Me too.” Agreed Dean.

~~~

“How did Jody take it?” Dean inquired after Sam finished his call.

“Better than I did. She said it was the ‘Mom’ gene, she is already organising dropping off supplies to her vulnerable neighbours with Claire and Alex is busy at the hospital. She sounded tired, but determined. Claire is happy to be doing anything because Jody won’t let her hunt at the moment. She wants her at home. Jody’s organising her deputies to check up on anyone who might need help and ferrying essential workers to and from work.”

“Huh, Donna said much the same, minus the girls of course. She has organised the Sheriff’s department to quit stopping people for petty things and get them helping out in the community. She said she will keep in touch.” 

~~~

“So, of the hunters I was able to get a hold of are either staying put or finding somewhere safe to hole up. They did agree to spread the word though. What about you?” Sam enquired.

“Garth and Bess are doing OK. He sends you a ‘big squishy hug’, his words not mine” Dean told Sam. 

“Great, can’t wait for that.” Sam responded with a shudder. 

Dean smiled. “He is going to do a telephone tree to make sure everyone knows the score.”

“A telephone tree?” Sam queried, forehead furrowed in question. 

“Yep, apparently now he’s a husband and father, he does that kind of thing now. Weird!”

“Very weird” agreed Sam. 

~~~

“Now what?” Sam asked.

“Dinner. I’ll whip something up, and yes you can have some of that rabbit food you love so much. Why don’t you go pick some veggies and I’ll get started” 

“Sure, be right back” 

Sam found Dean in the kitchen preparing their meal, he put the greens in the sink to wash. Gesturing to the veggies, “Considering what’s going on out there right now, it’s a blessing to have these just outside isn’t it?” 

“Dean, Dean, did you hear me? I said that it was a good thing that we had the garden right now.”

“Mmm” was Dean’s reply, his head was in the refrigerator.

“You know it was a really good idea of yours, you know, considering..”

“Uh huh” Dean now had his head deep in one of the cupboards. 

Exasperated Sam asked “What are you doing in there? Look at me.” 

“What? I needed a pot for dinner, why don’t you clean the greens and get to chopping?”

“Sure, OK.” Sam sighed and began to wash the greens. Before he started chopping them he turned to Dean frowning and studied his back for a moment he then went back to his task. Something was bothering him, he wasn’t even sure what it was, but it was there, niggling away at him, right there at the back of his mind. 

~~~

Dean was clearing the table after a quiet meal, Sam was thinking, trying to figure something out, he could tell just by looking at him. He placed another coffee in front of Sam and nudged it towards him. Sam picked it up automatically and raised it to his lips. Dean said he was going to check on the generator and left Sam to his pondering.

When Dean returned his brother was close to his ‘Eureka’ moment so Dean made fresh coffee for them both and got himself comfortable. He watched and he waited. He didn’t know what Sam was figuring out, but couldn’t wait for the big reveal. 

When Sam put his half drunk mug of coffee down on the table, pushed back his chair, stood up and began pacing, Dean knew it was almost time, Sam was going to have worked something out. God he absolutely loved this part, he mentally rubbed his hands together in anticipation. 

Sam suddenly stopped, turned and abruptly left the library and after 10 minutes or so came back in carrying his journal. 

“OK, weird”, thought Dean, but he still waited patiently. Sam would reveal all in his own good time. 

Sam sat down at the table and placed the book in front of him, he leant forward and started flicking through it. Dean could not work out what was going on. Sam flicked faster and faster until the ‘Eureka’ moment happened. God Dean was looking forward to this. 

Sam took a deep breath, “Dean, how did you know there was going to be a pandemic?” Sam asked.

Dean, was blindsided and was completely shocked by the question, “Wait, what? What are you talking about? I had no freaking idea there was going to be a pandemic. Where the hell did you get that idea from?” 

“It all makes sense.” said Sam confidently. “You suggested we plant a veggie garden, you replaced the old generator and you converted the bunker so that we could run some of the bunker off solar power. And you re engineered some of the cars to bio oil, which we conveniently have a bucket load of out back. If you weren’t preparing for a pandemic what on earth were you doing?”

“Erm, well. I. About that. I can explain.” Dean began rubbing the back of his neck. Looking up Dean saw that Sam was becoming angry, “I swear I didn’t know anything about this though. I promise Sammy.” He said softly, begging for Sam to believe him. 

Sam raised his eyebrows and waited for an explanation, he believed Dean when he said he didn’t know about the pandemic, but something was definitely going on here.

“Dean!” Sam demanded.

Now Dean looked sheepish, what was going on Sam wondered. 

“OK,” Dean began, “so this is going to take some back story. You remember when we separated after Lucifer rose?” Sam nodded. “And that douchebag Zachariah sent me to the future?” 

Sam nodded again for Dean to continue. 

“Well I met Chuck there. Only we didn’t know who he really was, we still knew him as a Prophet.”

“OK.. and?” Sam prompted. 

“So he gave me some advice that I didn’t take much notice of at the time, after all I was in apocalypse world, and I was trying to find you and I was freaking out quite a bit. So I kind of forgot about it. I only remembered it after that high school musical nightmare. I started to read the books, his books, about us. I read ‘The End’ and there it was. Chuck’s words; “Hoard toilet paper. Hoard it like it’s made of gold, cause it is” 

“I don’t understand. How do you get from toilet paper to pandemic?” Sam asked bewildered. 

“I told you Sam, I didn’t know about the pandemic and I wasn’t finished. Anyway, I didn’t think about what Chuck said for years. It wasn’t until we met him again only now he was God that I started to think. I know that Zach had no idea that Chuck was God and he threw him in my apoco-nightmare just for the hell of it, but it got me thinking. What if there was something, I mean considering our lives it’s not too much of a jump, but maybe there was something that we couldn’t stop. Something World changing. So I started planning, preparing. We already had the bunker, I just needed to adapt it a little.”

Sam was dumfounded, “Dean that’s incredible. Brilliant even. So, what did you do?” 

“Well you know about the garden the cars and the generator, come and have a look at the rest.”

Dean got up and Sam followed him to the kitchen. Dean collected a bunch of keys from the hook next to the door and lead Sam through the bunker. They went deeper that they usually did, As they walked, lights overhead came on to light their way and went dark after they passed. They continued until they reached a door. Sam looked around, he’d been here before, but not for years. If his bearings were right, they were as deep in the bunker as the garage. 

Dean shook the bunch of keys until he found the right key, inserted in the lock and opened the door. He reached in and turned on a light. Sam followed Dean. The space ahead was huge; it must have been the same dimensions as their garage, only there were no cars in sight. There were shelves, hundreds of them, stacked to the ceiling with a variety of items. As Sam walked he checked them out, there was a section for toiletries, one for cleaning products, one for staples for the kitchen. There were shelves of clothes and towels and bedding. 

One whole section was dedicated to medical supplies, there were bandages, syringes, gauze, O2 tanks, masks, gloves, saline bags and there were shelves of medications; antibiotics, painkillers, adrenaline, insulin, there was even snake bite anti-venom. 

Sam was in awe, this was an actual survivalists bunker. He turned and behind him were rows and rows of toilet roll. He started to laugh. Dean had been watching his brother’s face waiting for his reaction. Dean laughed with Sam, though in relief. 

As Sam walked round the vast space pulling items of the shelves he began to ask questions. “When did you start this?” 

“After Mom came back” Dean replied.

Concerned, Sam asked, “How did you get it in here without me knowing?” he thought that they were through with secrets. 

“Follow me” Dean said and walked back further in to the cavernous room and stopped at a door on the other side of the room. Out came the keys again, Dean unlocked the door and it opened into the garage. Sam could see Baby near the entrance. 

“Wow!” Sam turned round and looked for the door they had just exited, it wasn’t there anymore. “Wait, where did the door go?” Sam walked over the wall and started rubbing his hands over where he knew the door was seconds earlier. He looked to Dean for an explanation. 

“Well, it turns out that the Men of Letters didn’t want just anyone to know about this entrance. You can only see it if you are holding the key. Here.” Dean handed Sam the keys. Sam looked up from his hand and the door was there again. 

Turning back to Dean, “Well that’s a useful little spell isn’t it?” Sam stated sharply. Why hadn’t Dean told him about this, it was a pretty big thing to keep from him? He was beginning to get angry.

“Sammy..,” Dean looked Sam in the eye and spoke imploringly “I never wanted you to know about this. I never wanted to have to tell you. Telling you would mean that it was the end of the world, again. You have been through enough, more than enough. Hell we both have. Knowing that this was here, preparing for hell on earth, ‘just in case’ was what I wanted to do, what I needed to do in the hope that we would never, never need it. Do you understand?”

Sam took a moment to think, accepting Dean at his word, “Yeah, I understand. I might need some time to process all this though. I still have questions.”

“Ask away.” Dean prompted, eager to answer anything Sam asked.

“OK, the medical supplies, they are going to go out of date, how often do you have to replace them? It must be a nightmare having to steal all those supplies or do you have a source?”

Dean smirked. “Dean, what did you do?” Sam demanded.

“Don’t you worry your sasquatch sized brain about it Sammy I got it covered. I persuaded Rowena to give me a spell that stops things from ageing. Have you seen her, for a 400 year old witch she looks pretty damn good for her age, I figured she must know a thing or two about slowing the aging process. She was happy to oblige. She wanted a specific crystal in exchange and we had it here in the bunker.” 

Seeing the horrified look on Sam’s face, Dean continued quickly, holding his hands up in reassurance, “You had already checked its provenance and discovered its power had already been used up. So no harm no foul. Rowena thought she was getting a juicy deal and I knew the crystal was harmless. She wasn’t happy about it when it didn’t do whatever she wanted it to do, but I claimed ignorance and she believed me.”

Dean’s shit-eating grin was infectious, and Sam found himself smiling back. 

Sam, still holding the keys went back into the ‘room of requirement’ as he had begun referring to it in his head. He wandered the aisles and Dean answered all his questions. Sam was more and more impressed with what Dean had achieved with every answer he received. Dean had thought of everything. 

~~~

That night over dinner, Sam asked another question, “When did you find that key to the magic door?”

“Well, the key has been on that bunch hanging in the kitchen since we moved in, I didn’t know what it was for till after Mom came back. I was giving her a tour of the bunker and we were in the garage talking to Baby. It was mortifying listening to her ‘re-acquaint’ herself with the car so I walked away.” Dean shuddered theatrically. “I had the keys in my hands and the door appeared out of nowhere. I just looked at it. I put the keys down to investigate, looked back and the door was gone. It took me a few to work out what the hell was going on. Later, when Mom was settled, I went back. The rest, as they say is history.”

“How come you didn’t use the key to get us out of here when Ketch locked us in here? We could have done with a miracle then.” Sam enquired.

Dean looked guilty, “Well I would have but I had just unloaded supplies from the car before all the hunters started dying. We left soon after looking for Mom and I accidentally left the keys in Baby. Didn’t get them out of there till after it all went down.”

“Oh OK,” Sam said nodding, “well we have all these supplies, what are we going to do with it all?”

“Well, now we know we don’t have to go fight another ‘Big Bad’, I was thinking, we could be a base for those that can get here and use what we have to help out the locals, like Jody and Donna are doing. There are people out there who are vulnerable and can’t leave their homes and we have supplies that can help them.”

Sam nodded in agreement, unwilling and unable to watch the world go crazy around him and let innocents suffer. “Maybe Rowena can come up with something to protect us from the virus,” Sam mused, “but in the meantime we have the masks you already have stored, the scientists say they offer some protection.”

Dean looked up at Sam, “Looks like we have work to do.” 

The end


End file.
